Anne Hathaway Marries

[BobBradshaw]

Anne Hathaway Marries

Such a wet summer!
Will’s index finger rowing back and forth
'tween my drenched legs…

He looked at me with eyes
as bright as a brook’s.
How couldst I not fall in love?

What did we have in common?
I was 26, Will a mere 18.
I was at a marrying age,

Will at an age of drinking
with pals and poaching deer
on the Charlecote Estate.

He was in love with me
as much as he was…nay, more
—he swore—than he had ever

loved Ovid. Thou lie, William,
I answered…’Tis no girl
in the country with that name!

By the time ‘twas obvious
that the rags between my legs
were always spotless,

he was mad for another girl.
When comest to love,
Will, I fear thou wilt always be like a boy

stepping onto the ice
with skates for the first time--
thou wilt fall quick.

Pregnant, what choice
did I have? I strode
into Will’s father’s glove shop

and when I left his father
was stammering “yes, yes
my boy will do his duty.”

On my wedding day sisters
and friends threw rushes
before my feet.

Will took me upstairs to a bed
on Henley Street, and 6 months
later Susanna was born,

and the one worry
I had in those days of my husband
was his love of words,

and him often scribbling away
instead of coming to bed,
and my arm flung out for his chest

in the middle of the night
finding an emptiness
like one of his blank pages

before his quill could wet them
—but his verses did naught to keep me
from getting pregnant again.

So why worry over Will’s ardor
for mere words?
Canst he undo their bodices

or kiss or cosset their breasts
as if they were twin sisters
whom he cannot choose between?

Why worry about language?
What release can words offer
greater than a marriage bed’s?

Whatever he writes, his words
will never be lovelier
than “I do”.

[Kenneth2816]

I like the voice and how you slid in Elizabethan
diction

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Ken